Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The Ol' Switcheroo

We've traded Tasha in on a new dog.

I never could get a good photo of her because as soon as she saw the camera she would run away, though the SPCA photographer did get a couple of pretty good shots.

She's a real sweetheart. She went to visit the convalescent hospital on Sunday and everybody wanted to keep her. She will make a great pet, but she and Lizzie didn't get along. It was an uneasy truce that erupted at least once a day into a bitter battle. Sheila was just great. She would get between the two of them and push Lizzie aside so I could separate them and move Tasha away.

She was also starting to feel at home here and "feeling at home" made her comfortable to test limits. We often found her standing on the kitchen counter. Not good!!!

When Ashley sent out an urgent call for foster homes, I suggested that we trade Tasha for one of the other dogs, and so now we have Barkley.

He's a very sweet 3 year old Scotty/terrier mix. So far Lizzie is establishing territory, but there have been no battles. Barkley can't jump up to the kitchen table or the counter, but he can (and has) jumped in and out of my lap at least 50 times since he got home.

He seems to have fear of men. Ashley wrote, "Barkley was really scared at the shelter but as soon as he got in the car to go to his foster home he jumped in the front seat and gave me a kiss! He is a total sweetie who just loves people and dogs." The fact that he was "really scared" at the shelter and then reacted so positively to Ashley (and to me), but not to Walt makes me think that he may have had some negative contact with men. I told Walt to just go slow and I think he'll come around quickly.